Hello! I am planning to bind my copy of strays into a physical hardback book, and I'm wondering where you looked for/found all the flower illustrations you've got on the bottom of the pages? I'd like to gather a bunch to put together into one sheet for the lining paper :)
Hi! The illustrations were sourced from pixabay. If you search plants -> illustrations -> black and white, it should bring up a lot. They're free to use, no attribution required.
Alternatively, if you message me on twitter, I can figure out a way to send you the specific plant illustrations I used. It's about 30mb of files.
Realized belatedly that I misread your post. Please disregard my previous.
Also, if you're using pixabay, you may want to try a few related search terms. I think I got some of the illustrations by looking for, like, 'botany' and 'flowers' and such. They might not all be properly tagged as plants.
Words can't really describe how excited I am to play this. It somehow seems to include all the things I've been obsessed with for a while - fae folklore, the 1950s, teen shenanigans... I love the game system and how adequate it seems to the folklore (i especially love the idea of bargaining), and the world is amazing! I'm so glad I found this gem.
Opens with minifiction? Yes. Love that. Written so that someone who has never played a TTRPG could GM this? Yes. LOVE THAT. Open, expansive, and fully realized setting? BABES, yes. It's gorgeous stuff. I love how hard you have leaned into fairy lore in every single page. Not once do you miss an opportunity to drive the theme home.
If I had a single criticism it is this: I want to take your fancy border and cast it into the fires of mount doom. 100+ pages is too many pages for my eye to get caught on that thing.
I am so sorry about the border! I wanted some kind of framing instead of just white space, and it fit with the antique faerie stories aesthetic. If you want, I can upload a version without the border.
Don't you dare! Really, Kumada, if that's the best criticism I could come up with, you ought to be really proud of yourself. It DOES fit with the antique faerie aesthetic. It is worth mentioning: my complaint was not that I don't like it, it's JUST that it's on every single page. If you ever do a new layout on this, I humbly suggest you consider finding a second or even a third border. Use them as visual signals that the kind of information you are about to present on a page is a different KIND of information. This kind of visual signal helps people find the information they're looking for at a glance, is all. If you never do a new layout on this then just leave it as is. It's still very beautiful.
I'd actually planned that for my original layout, and it ended up feeling kind of jumbled in its implementation. I have a whole folder full of public domain page borders from the attempt, and I just couldn't get it to work. Using the same page border gave the book a kind of a throughline, and then I used the seasonal photographs to indicate changes of content and tone between sections.
While I don't have the same problem - I could just ignore it after a few pages - I do think it's a bit aggressive. I'd probably shrink it a bit, or try to soften it by greyscaling it or thinning the lines.
Wonderful game, the moves feel like a nice evolution from other PbtA games.
I've already found a few things I want to adjust, mostly small stuff like some prepositions missing capitalization in the ToC. I'll collect feedback and then make some changes.
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Hello! I am planning to bind my copy of strays into a physical hardback book, and I'm wondering where you looked for/found all the flower illustrations you've got on the bottom of the pages? I'd like to gather a bunch to put together into one sheet for the lining paper :)
Hi! The illustrations were sourced from pixabay. If you search plants -> illustrations -> black and white, it should bring up a lot. They're free to use, no attribution required.
Alternatively, if you message me on twitter, I can figure out a way to send you the specific plant illustrations I used. It's about 30mb of files.
Thank you for the response! I don't have twitter and I'm happy to pick and choose from the whole collection myself :)
Ah, okay, do you have an email address you're comfortable posting here that I could reach you at? Or a discord?
Realized belatedly that I misread your post. Please disregard my previous.
Also, if you're using pixabay, you may want to try a few related search terms. I think I got some of the illustrations by looking for, like, 'botany' and 'flowers' and such. They might not all be properly tagged as plants.
Words can't really describe how excited I am to play this. It somehow seems to include all the things I've been obsessed with for a while - fae folklore, the 1950s, teen shenanigans... I love the game system and how adequate it seems to the folklore (i especially love the idea of bargaining), and the world is amazing! I'm so glad I found this gem.
Thank you! I'm glad you like it!
Opens with minifiction? Yes. Love that.
Written so that someone who has never played a TTRPG could GM this? Yes. LOVE THAT.
Open, expansive, and fully realized setting? BABES, yes. It's gorgeous stuff.
I love how hard you have leaned into fairy lore in every single page. Not once do you miss an opportunity to drive the theme home.
If I had a single criticism it is this: I want to take your fancy border and cast it into the fires of mount doom. 100+ pages is too many pages for my eye to get caught on that thing.
I am so sorry about the border! I wanted some kind of framing instead of just white space, and it fit with the antique faerie stories aesthetic. If you want, I can upload a version without the border.
Don't you dare! Really, Kumada, if that's the best criticism I could come up with, you ought to be really proud of yourself. It DOES fit with the antique faerie aesthetic.
It is worth mentioning: my complaint was not that I don't like it, it's JUST that it's on every single page. If you ever do a new layout on this, I humbly suggest you consider finding a second or even a third border. Use them as visual signals that the kind of information you are about to present on a page is a different KIND of information. This kind of visual signal helps people find the information they're looking for at a glance, is all.
If you never do a new layout on this then just leave it as is. It's still very beautiful.
I'd actually planned that for my original layout, and it ended up feeling kind of jumbled in its implementation. I have a whole folder full of public domain page borders from the attempt, and I just couldn't get it to work. Using the same page border gave the book a kind of a throughline, and then I used the seasonal photographs to indicate changes of content and tone between sections.
While I don't have the same problem - I could just ignore it after a few pages - I do think it's a bit aggressive. I'd probably shrink it a bit, or try to soften it by greyscaling it or thinning the lines.
Wonderful game, the moves feel like a nice evolution from other PbtA games.
I'll tinker with it!
I've already found a few things I want to adjust, mostly small stuff like some prepositions missing capitalization in the ToC. I'll collect feedback and then make some changes.